North Carolina Quilting Party

North Carolina Quilting Party by Mary Lyde Hicks Williams. Mary Lyde Hicks Williams (1866-1959) Mary's paintings of freed slaves reflected daily life she saw on her uncle's plantation during Reconstruction in North Carolina.

Fighting for Equality - Abby Hadassah Smith (1797-1878) & Julia Evelina Smith, (1792-1886)

Born today in 1797, Abby Hadassah Smith (1797-1878) & her sister Julia Evelina Smith, (1792-1886).  The sisters were American suffragists who relentlessly protested for their property & voting rights, drawing considerable national & international attention to their situation & their cause.

Julia Evelina Smith, left, and Abby Hadassah Smith.

The Smith sisters lived almost their entire lives at the Connecticut farm homestead where they were born. Abby & Julia were the youngest of 5 daughters born to noted intellectual scholars Zephaniah Hollister Smith & Hannah Hadassah Hickock. The couple emphasized the importance of learning, nonconformity, & imaginative thought to their children. Educated at Emma Willard’s Seminary in Troy, New York, Julia Smith was known to have kept a diary in both French & Latin. She also translated her own version of the Bible from original Greek, Hebrew, & Latin sources, which she published in 1876. The sisters were active in temperance work & local charities, and reflecting the influences of their parents, they were notably independent in judgment & action.

A painting of Kimberly Mansion, the home of the Smith Sisters, located at 1625 Main St. in Glastonbury. The painting by Laurilla Smith, the sister of Julia & Abby Smith.

Totally against slavery in America, the Smith sisters invited William Lloyd Garrison to give abolitionist speeches from a tree stump in their front yard, when he was denied access to Hartford pulpits. The sisters also widely distributed the anti-slavery Charter Oak newspaper throughout Glastonbury. Their mother, who had authored one of the earliest anti-slavery petitions presented to Congress by John Quincy Adams, fully supported her daughters' abolitionist actions. 

Once slavery had been abolished in the United States, the Smith sisters focused their attentions on women’s suffrage. Before they could concentrate much energy on that movement; however, Julia & Abby, at the ages of 81 & 76, found themselves waging a personal battle against sexual inequality after inheriting the single most valuable piece of property in Glastonbury—their home, known as Kimberly Mansion.  

By 1869, Abby  & Julia were the only surviving members of the family. In November 1873, the Glastonbury tax collector informed the sisters that their recently reassessed property had raised $100 in value. Two widows in the town also had their property reassessed, but none of their male neighbors’ property values had risen.  The sisters immediately became indignant at what they perceived to be a grave injustice. Being women, they were politically powerless, since they lacked the right to vote. Despite this, Abby quickly composed a speech to present before the Glastonbury town meeting. In this speech, Abby declared:

"The motto of our government is ‘proclaim liberty to all the inhabitants of the land,’ and here, where liberty is so highly extolled and glorified by every man in it, one-half of the inhabitants are not put under her laws, but are ruled over by the other half, who can take all they possess. How is liberty pleased with such worship?. . . All we ask of the town is not to rule over them as they rule over us, but to be on an equality with them."

The male voters of Glastonbury ignored Abby’s speech, so the sisters decided they would not pay taxes to the city, until they gained equal representation in government. The Glastonbury tax collector responded by seizing 7 of the sister’s cows for auction, 4 of which Abby & Julia bought back.  The sister thereafter refused to pay taxes, unless they were granted the right to vote in town meetings.

First to recognize the national importance of the sisters’ plight, the editor of The Republican, a newspaper published in Springfield, Massachusetts, wrote, “Abby Smith and her sister as truly stand for the American principle as did the citizens who ripped open the tea chests in Boston Harbor, or the farmers who leveled their muskets at Concord.” Without the sisters’ knowledge or permission, he reprinted Abby’s entire speech & set up a defense fund in her name. Soon, newspapers across the country began to reprint their story. A Harper’s Weekly author referred to Abby as “Samuel Adams redivivus.” Their cows became so famous that flowers made from their tail hair with ribbons reading “Taxation without Representation” were sold at a Chicago bazaar.

 Photo of the home of the Smith sisters at 1625 Main St. in Glastonbury

At a 2nd town meeting in April, Abby was refused permission to speak, whereupon she mounted a wagon outside & delivered her protest to the crowd. In June, authorities seized 15 acres of the Smiths’ pastureland, valued at $2,000, for delinquent taxes amounting to about $50. The sale of the land was conducted irregularly, however, & after a protracted suit, during the course of which the sisters had almost to study law themselves, they succeeded in having it set aside. Their cows, 4 of which they had been able to buy back, were twice more taken for taxes & soon became a cause célèbre throughout the country & even abroad as newspapers spread the story. 

Published versions of Abby’s speeches, along with witty  & effective letters by both sisters to various newspapers, brought them considerable prominence. In 1877, Julia edited & published an account of the events, Abby Smith & Her Cows, with a Report of the Law Case Decided Contrary to Law. Both sisters spoke at numerous suffrage meetings & also testified before state & federal legislative committees concerning woman suffrage. In 1879, a year after her sister’s death, Julia married & moved to Hartford.

Information in this posting comes from:
The Encyclopedia Britannica online
The Smith Sisters, Their Cows, and Women’s Rights in  Glastonbury written by Molly May

Portrait of Mary Lyde Faison

MARY LYDE FAISON IN PENSIVE MOOD by Mary Lyde Hicks Williams.  Mary Lyde Hicks Williams (1866-1959) Mary's paintings of freed slaves reflected daily life she saw on her uncle's plantation during Reconstruction in North Carolina.

Ex-Slave Mary Crane Remembers giving a slave to each newlywed daughter in 19C America

Mary explained, "In those days, slave owners, whenever one of their daughters would get married, would give her and her husband a slave as a wedding present, usually allowing the girl to pick the one she wished to accompany her to her new home."

Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Photo from 20th century.

Portrait of Edith

PORTRAIT OF EDITH by Mary Lyde Hicks Williams.  Mary Lyde Hicks Williams (1866-1959) Mary's paintings of freed slaves reflected daily life she saw on her uncle's plantation during Reconstruction in North Carolina.

Ex-slave Betty Powers, about 80, Remembers owners having sex with any slave they wanted in 19C America

Betty said, "Did we'uns have weddin's? White man, you knows better'n dat. Dem times, cullud folks em jus' put together. De massa say, 'Jim and Nancy, you go live together.' and when dat order give, it better be done. Dey thinks nothin' on de plantation 'bout de feelin's of de women and dere ain't no 'spect for dem. De overseer and white mens took 'vantage of de women like dey wants to. De woman better not make no fuss 'bout sich. If she do, it am de whippin' for her."

Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Photo from 20th century.

Women on the North American Canadian Frontier in 19C - by Dutch-born Cornelius Krieghoff 1815-1872

Cornelius Krieghoff (Dutch-born Canadian painter, 1815-1872) Indian Woman Moccasin Seller

Cornelius Krieghoff 1815-1872 was born in Amsterdam, spent his formative years in Bavaria, & studied in Rotterdam & Dusseldorf. He traveled to the United States in the 1830s, where he served in the Army for a few years. He married a young woman from Quebec & moved to the Montreal area, where he painted genre paintings of the people & countryside of Canada. According to Charles C. Hill, Curator of Canadian Art at the National Gallery, "Krieghoff was the first Canadian artist to interpret in oils... the splendour of our waterfalls, & the hardships & daily life of people living on the edge of new frontiers" Krieghoff moved to Quebec from 1854-1863, before he came to Chicago to live with his daughter.

Ex-Slave Lou Williams Remembers the large food gardens of her childhood in 19C America

Lou explained, "We had big gardens and lots of vegetables to eat, 'cause massa had 'bout 800 slaves and 'bout a 1,000 acres in he plantation. In summer time we wore jes' straight cotton slips and no shoes till Sunday, den we puts on shoes and white dresses and ties a ribbon 'round our waists, and we didn't look like de same chillen."

Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves.Photo from 20th century.

Collard Greens as Natural Cure for a Headache

WOMAN WITH COLLARD LEAF ON HER HEAD TO CURE A HEADACHE by Mary Lyde Hicks Williams.  Mary Lyde Hicks Williams (1866-1959) Mary's paintings of freed slaves reflected daily life she saw on her uncle's plantation during Reconstruction in North Carolina.

Ex-slave Charlotte Beverly, about 90, Remembers slave babies in 19C America

Charlotte explained, "The white folks had interes' in they cullud people where I live. Sometimes they's as many as fifty cradle with little nigger babies in 'em and the mistus, she look after them and take care of them, too. She turn them and dry them herself. She had a little gal git water and help. She never had no chillen of her own. I'd blow the horn for the mudders of the little babies to come in from the fields and nurse 'em, in mornin' and afternoon. Mistus feed them what was old enough to eat victuals. Sometimes, they mammies take them to the field and fix pallet on ground for then to lay on."

Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Photo from 20th century.

Maggie during Reconstruction

PORTRAIT OF MAGGIE by Mary Lyde Hicks William.  Mary Lyde Hicks William (1866-1959) Mary's paintings of freed slaves reflected daily life she saw on her uncle's plantation during Reconstruction in North Carolina.

Ex-slave Frances Black, about 87, Remembers being stolen from her family in 19C America

Francis remembered, "I was born in Grand Bluff, in Mississippi, on Old Man Carlton's plantation, and I was stole from my folks when I was a li'l gal and never seed them no more. Us kids played in the big road there in Mississippi, and one day me and 'nother gal is playin' up and down the road and three white men come 'long in a wagon. They grabs as up and puts us in the wagon and covers us with quilts. I hollers and yells and one the men say, 'Shet up, you nigger, or I'll kill you.' I told him, 'Kill me if you wants to - you stole me from my folks."

Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Photo from 20th century.

North Carolina Corn Shucking in the Moonlight

Corn Shucking in the Moonlight  by Mary Lyde Hicks Williams. Mary Lyde Hicks Williams (1866-1959) Mary's paintings of freed slaves reflected daily life she saw on her uncle's plantation during Reconstruction in North Carolina.

Women on the North American Canadian Frontier in 19C - by Dutch-born Cornelius Krieghoff 1815-1872

Cornelius Krieghoff was born in Amsterdam, spent his formative years in Bavaria, and studied in Rotterdam & Dusseldorf. He traveled to the United States in the 1830s, where he served in the Army for a few years. He married a young woman from Quebec and moved to the Montreal area, where he created genre paintings of the people & countryside of Canada. According to Charles C. Hill, "Krieghoff was the first Canadian artist to interpret in oils... the splendour of our waterfalls, and the hardships and daily life of people living on the edge of new frontiers" Krieghoff lived in Quebec from 1854-1863, before he came to Chicago to live with his daughter.

Cornelius Krieghoff (Dutch-born Canadian painter, 1815-1872) The Blizzard 1857

Women Processing Cotton in 19C Reconstruction South Carolina

Cotton Picking After Slavery - Six African American Women in a Cotton Field by Mary Lyde Hicks Williams  

Mary Lyde Hicks William (1866-1959) Mary's paintings of freed slaves reflected daily life she saw on her uncle's plantation during Reconstruction in North Carolina.  The central figure with her hands on her hips is Aubt Betsey George.  The woman with the basket on her head Anna Stevens, who worked as a housemaid. Cotton was traditionally picked in splint baskets, or in cotton sheets, which would be tied to make a bag.  When it was "cotton picking time," all hands were utilized in order to get the cotton safely stored before bad or wet weather came.

 Cotton 1890-1910 After Slavery - Weighing Cotton by Mary Lyde Hicks Williams

Cotton 1890-1910 After Slavery - Seeding and Carding Cotton by Mary Lyde Hicks Williams

The Saturday night pass 19C America

Louise remembered, "Marster Turner am very reasonable 'bout de wo'k. He wants a good days wo'k, an' all de cullud fo'ks gives it to him. Weuns had Saturday afternoons off, an' co'se, Sundays too. Weuns does de washin' an' sich wo'k as weuns wants to do fo' ourselves on Saturdays, den weuns could go to parties at night. De Marster gives weuns a pass ever' Saturday night if weuns wanted it. Weuns had to have de pass 'cause de Patterollers am watchin' fo' de cullud fo'ks as don't have de pass. Weuns have singin' an' dancin' at de parties. De dancin' am quadrilles an' de music am fiddles an' banjoes."

Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Photo from 20th century.

Women on the North American Canadian Frontier in 19C - by Dutch-born Cornelius Krieghoff 1815-1872

Cornelius Krieghoff (Dutch-born Canadian painter, 1815-1872) J B Jolifou, Aubergiste

Cornelius Krieghoff was born in Amsterdam, spent his formative years in Bavaria, and studied in Rotterdam & Dusseldorf. He traveled to the United States in the 1830s, where he served in the Army for a few years. He married a young woman from Quebec and moved to the Montreal area, where he created genre paintings of the people & countryside of Canada. According to Charles C. Hill, "Krieghoff was the first Canadian artist to interpret in oils... the splendour of our waterfalls, and the hardships and daily life of people living on the edge of new frontiers" Krieghoff lived in Quebec from 1854-1863, before he came to Chicago to live with his daughter.

Ex-slave Tempie Cummins Remembers her mother announcing freedom 19C America

Tempie remembered, "Mother was workin' in the house, and she cooked too. She say she used to hide in the chimney corner and listen to what the white folks say. When freedom was 'clared, marster wouldn' tell 'em, but mother she hear him tellin' mistus that the slaves was free but they didn' know it and he's not gwineter tell 'em till he makes another crop or two. When mother hear that she say she slip out the chimney corner and crack her heels together four times and shouts. 'I's free, I's free.' Then she runs to the field, 'gainst marster's will and tol' all the other slaves and they quit work. Then she run away and in the night she slip into a big ravine near the house and have them bring me to her. Marster, he come out with his gun and shot at mother but she run down the ravine and gits away with me."

Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Photo from 20th century.

The Peacock Broom

PEACOCK BROOM IN THE DINING ROOM by Mary Lyde Hicks Williams. Mary Lyde Hicks Williams (1866-1959) Mary's paintings of freed slaves reflected daily life she saw on her uncle's plantation during Reconstruction in North Carolina.

Ex-slave Amy Chapman, about 94, Remembers a mean overseer 19C America

Amy recounted, "One day Marse Reuben come home an' when he foun' out dat de overseer was mean to de slaves he commence to give him a lecture, but when Miss Ferlicia tuk a han' in de business, she didn't stop at no lecture, She tol' dat overseer dis: 'I hear you take my women an' turn dere cloth'n over dere haids an' whup 'em. Any man dats got a family would do sich a thing oughter be sham' of hisself, an' iffen Gov. Chapman can't make you leave, I kin, so you see dat road dere? Well, make tracks den.' An' Mistis, he lef' right den. He didn't wait for no coaxin'. He was de meanes' overseer us ever had."

Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Photo from 20th century.

Women on the North American Canadian Frontier in 19C - by Dutch-born Cornelius Krieghoff 1815-1872

From Europe to the Atlantic coast of America & on to the Pacific coast during the 17C-19C, settlers moved West encountering a variety of Indigenous Peoples who had lived on the land for centuries. Cornelius Krieghoff was born in Amsterdam, spent his formative years in Bavaria, and studied in Rotterdam & Dusseldorf. He traveled to the United States in the 1830s, where he served in the Army for a few years. He married a young woman from Quebec and moved to the Montreal area, where he created genre paintings of the people & countryside of Canada. According to Charles C. Hill, "Krieghoff was the first Canadian artist to interpret in oils... the splendour of our waterfalls, and the hardships and daily life of people living on the edge of new frontiers" Krieghoff lived in Quebec from 1854-1863, before he came to Chicago to live with his daughter.

Cornelius Krieghoff (Dutch-born Canadian painter, 1815-1872) Log Hut on the St Maurice

Ex-slave Siney Bonner Remembers being a Baptist with no drinking or cursing or dancing in 19C America

Ex-slave Siney Bonner

Siney related, "Yes suh, we was all Baptis' - de deep water kind, and every Sunday dey used to pile us into de waggins and pull out bright and early for Big Creek Church on the Carrollton road. Everybody fetched a big basket of grub and, sakes alive! sech another dinner you never see, all spread out on de grassy grove by de ole graveyard. Mos' all de quality white folks belonged at Big Creek and when dere slaves got sho' nuff 'ligion, dey have 'em jine at Big Creek and be baptized at de swimmin' hole. Some of de niggers want to have dere own meetin's, but Lawd chile, dem niggers get happy and get to shoutin' all over de meadow where dey built a bresh arbor. Massa John quick put a stop to dat. He says 'if you gwine to preach and sing you must turn de wash pot bottom up', meanin' no shoutin'. Dem Baptis' at-Big Creek was sho' tight wid dere rules too. Turn you out sho' if you drink too much cawn licker, or dance, or cuss."

Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Photo from 20th century.

Fighting for Equality - Evangelist Phoebe Worrall Palmer (1807-1874)

Phoebe Worrall Palmer (1807-1874) Born Phoebe Worrall on Dec. 11, 1807 in NYC to devout Methodist parents. In 1827, she married Walter Clarke Palmer, a 24 year old physician who was also a devout Methodist. Palmer was an evangelist, author, & prayer warrior. She was instrumental in the founding of the American Holiness movement.

Phoebe Worrall Palmer (1807-1874)

Three of their 4 children died at a young age.  In 1840, Phoebe assumed leadership of the Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness, & the attendance grew, drawing clergy & laity from many denominations. In this same year, she began speaking in public primarily at camp meetings, & for the next decade, she traveled alone while Walter remained in New York City to run his practice & their household. In the 1850s, Walter joined Phoebe on her trips, including a 4-year evangelistic tour of Great Britain, where their audiences often numbered in the thousands. Phoebe was also involved in urban work in the New York City slums, where she founded the Five Points Mission, an urban outreach center with a chapel, schoolroom, rent-free apartments, & numerous other social service programs. She was also an active editor & writer, editing the Guide to Holiness, a leading journal of the burgeoning holiness movement, publishing a number of books on topics, such as holiness & women’s right to speak in public.  She wrote a book entitled “The Promise of the Father” which advocated women in leadership.

Phoebe Worrall Palmer (1807-1874)

From Phoebe Palmer, Promise of the Father. Boston, 1859 

“Earnest prayers, long fasting, and burning tears may seem befitting, but cannot move the heart of infinite love to a greater willingness to save. God’s time is now. The question is not, What have I been? or What do I expect to be? But, Am I now trusting in Jesus to save to the uttermost? If so, I am now saved from all sin.” 

“[W]e have never conceived that it would be subservient to the happines, use­fulness, or true dignity of woman, were she permitted to occupy a prominent part in legislative halls, or take a leading position in the orderings of church conventions.”

“And is it in religion alone that woman is prone to overstep the bounds of propriety, when the impellings of her Heaven-baptized soul would lead her to come out from the cloister, and take positions of usefulness for God?”

“Who would restrain the lips of those whom God has endued with the gift of utterance, when those lips would fain abundantly utter the memory of God’s great goodness?”

“The Christian churches of the present day, with but few exceptions, have im­posed silence on Christian woman, so that her voice may but seldom be heard in Christian assemblies.”

"It is not our aim in this work to suggest, in behalf of woman, a change in the social or domestic relation. We are not disposed to feel that she is burdened with wrong in this direction. But we feel that there is a wrong, a serious wrong, affectingly cruel in its influences, which has long been depressing the hearts of the most devotedly pious women. And this wrong is inflicted by pious men, many of whom, we presume, imagine that they are doing God service in putting a seal upon lips which God has commanded to speak. It is not our intention to chide those who have thus kept the Christian female in bondage, as we believe in ignorance they have done it. But we feel that the time has now come when ignorance will involve guilt..."

Fighting for Equality - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Daughter, Harriot, Photograph taken circa 1890-1910 of a daguerreotype taken 1856.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), abolitionist and women's rights activist, lived for a time in Boston, where she befriended Lydia Child. With Lucretia Mott, she organized the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention for Women's rights; she also drafted its Declaration of Sentiments. Her "Woman's Declaration of Independence" begins "men and women are created equal" and includes a resolution to give women the right to vote. With Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton campaigned for suffrage in the 1860s and 1870s, formed the anti-slavery Women's Loyal National League and the National Woman Suffrage Association, and co-edited the weekly newspaper Revolution. President of the Woman Suffrage Association for 21 years, she led the struggle for women's rights. She gave public lectures in several states, partly to support the education of her seven children.

After her husband died, Cady Stanton deepened her analysis of inequality between the sexes. Her book The Woman's Bible (1895) discerns a deep-seated anti-female bias in Judaeo-Christian tradition. She lectured on such subjects as divorce, women's rights, and religion until her death at 86, just after writing a letter to President Theodore Roosevelt supporting the women's vote. Her numerous works -- at first pseudonymous, but later under her own name -- include three co-authored volumes of History of Woman Suffrage (1881-1886) and a candid, humorous autobiography.

LETTER To Women's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, Sunday, Oct. 20, 1850.

As you have handed over to me the case of those women who have fears in regard to the propriety of woman's exercising her political rights, I would gladly embrace this opportunity to address them through your Convention.

No one denies our right to the elective franchise, unless we except those who go against all human governments, and the non-resistant, who condemns a government of force, though I think the latter might consistently contend for the right, even if she might not herself choose to exercise it. But to those who believe in having a government - to those who believe that no just government can be formed without the consent of the governed - to them would I appeal, and of them do I demand some good reason why one half of the citizens of this Republic have no voice in the laws which govern them.

The right is one question, and the propriety of exercising it quite another. The former is undeniable, and against the latter I have never heard one solid objection that would not apply equally to man and woman.

Some tell us that if woman should interest herself in political affairs, it would destroy all domestic harmony. What, say they, would be the consequence, if husband and wife should not agree in their views of political economy? Because, forsooth, husband and wife may chance to differ in their theological sentiments, shall woman have no religion? Because she may not choose to worship at the same altar with her liege lord, must she of necessity do up all her worshipping in private, in her own closet? Because she might choose to deposit her vote for righteous rulers - such as love justice, mercy, truth, and oppose a husband, father, or brother, who would, by their votes, place political power in the hands of unprincipled men, swearing, fighting, leaders of armies, rumsellers and drunkards, slaveholders and prating northern hypocrites, who would surrender the poor panting fugitive from bondage into the hands of his blood-thirsty pursuers - shall she not vote at all? It is high time that men learned to tolerate independence of thought and opinion in the women of their household.

It would not make much difference in man's every day life, in his social enjoyments, whether his wife differed with him as to the locality of hell, the personality of the devil, or the comparative altitude of the saintships of Peter and Paul; as to one's right to as much air, water, light, and land as he might need for his necessities; as to the justice of free trade, free schools, the inviolable homestead, and personal freedom - provided the husband had a great head and heart, and did not insist upon doing up all the thinking and talking in the establishment himself, or the wife was not a miserable formalist, like Mrs. Swisshelm's Deborah Elmsley. Much of this talk about domestic harmony is the sheerest humbug. Look around among your whole circle of friends, and tell me, you who know what transpires behind the curtain, how many truly harmonious households have we now. Quiet households we may have, but submission and harmony produce very different states of quietness. There is no true happiness where there is subordination - no harmony without freedom.

But, say some, would you have women vote? What, refined, delicate women at the polls, mingling in such scenes of violence and vulgarity! By all means, where there is so much to be feared for the pure, the innocent, the noble, the mother surely should be there to watch and guard her sons who are to encounter such stormy, dangerous scenes at the tender age of twenty-one. Much is said of woman's influence: might not her presence do much toward softening down this violence, refining this vulgarity? Depend upon it, that places which, by their impure atmosphere, are rendered unfit for woman cannot but be dangerous to her sires and sons. But if woman claims all the rights of a citizen, will she buckle on her armor and fight in defence of her country? Has not woman already often shown herself as courageous in the field, as wise and patriotic in counsel, as man? Have you not had the brave Jagello in your midst, and vied with each other to touch but the hem of her garment? But for myself, I believe all war sinful; I believe in Christ; I believe that the command, "Resist not evil," is divine; I would not have man go to war; I can see no glory in fighting with such weapons as guns and swords, while man has in his possession the infinitely superior and more effective ones of righteousness and truth.

But if woman votes, would you have her hold office? Most certainly would we have woman hold office. We would have man and woman what God intended they should be, companions for each other, always together, in counsel, government, and every department of industry. If they have homes and children, we would have them stay there, educate their children, provide well for their physical wants, and share in each other's daily trials and cares. Children need the watchful care and wise teachings of fathers as well as of mothers. No man should give up a profitable business, leave his wife and children month after month, and year after year, and make his home desolate for any false ideas of patriotism, for any vain love of display or ambition for fame and distinction. The highest, holiest duty of both father and mother is to their children and each other, and when they can show to the world a well-developed, wisely-governed family, then let the State profit by their experience. Having done their duty at home, let them together sit in our national councils. The violence, rowdyism, and vulgarity which now characterize our Congressional Halls, show us clearly that "it is not good for man to be alone." The purifying, elevating, softening influence of woman is a most healthful restraint on him at all times and in all places. We have many noble women in our land, free from all domestic incumbrances, who might grace a Senate chamber, and for whose services the country might gladly forego all the noise, bluster, and folly of one-half the male dolts who now flourish there and pocket their eight dollars a day.

The most casual observer can see that there is some essential element wanting in the political organization of our Republic. The voice of woman has been silenced, but man cannot fulfil his destiny alone - he cannot redeem his race unaided. There must be a great national heart, as well as head; and there are deep and tender chords of sympathy and love that woman can touch more skillfully than man. The earth has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation, for woman has never yet stood the equal with man. As with nations, so with families. It is the wise mother who has the wise son, and it requires but little thought to decide, that as long as the women of this nation remain but half developed in mind and body, so long shall we have a succession of men dwarfed in body and soul. So long as your women are mere slaves, you may throw your colleges to the wind - there is no material to work upon. It is in vain to look for silver and gold from mines of copper and brass. How seldom now is the father's pride gratified in the budding genius of his son? The wife is degraded, made the mere creature of his tyranny and caprice, and now the foolish son is heaviness to his heart. Truly are the sins of the father visited upon the children. God, in his wisdom, has so linked together the whole human family, that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt throughout its length...E. C. STANTON.

Ex-slave Lizzie Jones Remembers the beds & the food in 19C America

Ex-slave Lizzie Jones, about 86 years old

Lizzie remembered, "The slaves slep' on bunks of homemade boa'ds nailed to the wall, wid poles fer legs. They cooked on the fire-place. I did'n know what a stove was till after the war. Sometime they would bake co'n-bread in the ashes. Ebber bit of the grub they et come from the white fo'ks, an' the clothes too. I run them looms many a night weavin' cloth. In the summer time the Niggers had lots of turnips, turnip-greens, an' garden-stuff to eat. Master allus put up several barrels of kraut an' a smokehouse full of po'k fer winter. He giv' the Niggers kraut, salt-po'k, meal, an' tallow, but no flour or lard. Huntin' was good 'fore the war, and on Saturday the men could go huntin' an' fishin' an' catch fish, possum, rabbit, squirrel an' coon to eat." 

Photos and quotes of former slaves used in these blog posts come from the Slave Narratives. 

Fighting for Equality - The Women's Rights movement & the Anti-Slavery movement

Neither Ballots nor Bullets: The Contest for Civil Rights

"Women can neither take the Ballot nor the Bullet . . .therefore to us, the right to petition is the one sacred right which we ought not to neglect." Susan B. Anthony, Address to the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1863

Susan B Anthony 1820-1906

"It is, perhaps, too late to bring slavery to an end by peaceable means, -- too late to vote it down. For many years I have feared, and published my fears, that it would go out in blood. These fears have grown into a belief." Gerrit Smith, Utica Daily Observer,1859

Gerrit Smith 1797-1874

Two great early 19th-century social movements sought to end slavery and secure equal rights for women. Gerrit Smith and Susan B. Anthony helped shape these two movements. The anti-slavery movement grew from peaceful origins after the American Revolution to a Civil War, or War Between the States, that effectively ended slavery while severely damaging the women's rights movement. Wielding the ballot and the bullet as well as the petition to win the legal, political, and military contest of the Civil War, abolitionists decided the fate of slavery with the 1865 passage of the 13th Amendment. Seeking their own rights, women used more peaceful tactics but suffered long delays. Not until 1920 did women add the ballot to their arsenal of political tools.

The women's rights movement was the offspring of abolition. Many people actively supported both reforms. Several participants in the 1848 Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls had already labored in the anti-slavery movement. The organizers and their families - the Motts, Wrights, Stantons, M'Clintocks and Hunts - were active abolitionists to a greater or lesser degree. Noted abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass attended and addressed the 1848 Convention.

Both movements promoted the expansion of the American promise of liberty and equality - to African Americans and to women. How did these two movements develop and how were they related to each other? How did each develop strategies and deal with the contradiction of violence and war that results from the advocacy of peaceful change?

"...the flagrant injustice and deep sin of slavery" Preamble to the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Constitution, 1833

After the American Revolution, northern states began to abolish slavery. Many slaveholders in the upper South also freed slaves. In 1817, the American Colonization Society formed to resettle freed slaves in Africa. However, the South depended on slave labor as cotton production expanded after the 1793 invention of the cotton gin. Repressive laws and public justification of slavery followed southern slave revolts in the 1820s and 1830s.

Religious revivals during the Second Great Awakening intensified anti-slavery activity after 1830. Seeking to perfect society, adherents targeted slavery as an evil that destroyed individual free will as moral beings. Abolitionists began to demand immediate, uncompensated emancipation of slaves. In 1833, William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, Quaker Lucretia Mott, and several others formed the American Anti-Slavery Society. Women were a large part of the general membership and formed separate, local female anti-slavery branches. Mott also helped found the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, an organization, noted for its promotion of racial and gender equality, that included African American and white women as leaders and members. Many anti-slavery reformers, like the Quakers, came from pacifist backgrounds or espoused nonviolent social reform. They shaped public opinion by distributing newspapers and tracts, sending out organizers and lecturers, and hosting fundraising fairs. Garrison, who saw the U.S. Constitution and federal government as pro-slavery forces, observed Independence Day as a day of mourning. Lucretia Mott and Thomas M'Clintock helped form the Philadelphia Free Produce Society, which boycotted slave-made products.

Between 1838 and 1840, the American Anti-Slavery Society split into three segments, in part over the issue of women's leadership, specifically Abby Kelley's appointment to the business committee. Radical abolitionists and women's rights supporters, known as "Garrisonian" abolitionists, remained in the American Anti-Slavery Society. The newly formed American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society restricted membership to males, with auxiliaries for females. The politically minded formed the Liberty Party, limiting women's participation to fundraising. The discrimination of women in abolition and other reform movements led them to advocate for women's rights.

Timbuctoo: Gerrit Smith’s Experiment.  From 1846 through 1853, Gerrit Smith developed a plan to give away 120,000 acres of Essex and Franklin County New York, farmland to 3,000 free black men. He hoped to qualify the men to vote. Although Smith's supporters promoted the project in churches and conventions, the plan eventually failed due to poor soil, harsh Adirondack winters, and the inexperience of the farmers themselves.

"Justice and Equality:" Antislavery and Women's Rights 

"…this is the only organization on God's footstool where the humanity of woman is recognized, and these are the only men who have ever echoed back her cries for justice and equality…. All time will not be long enough to pay the debt of gratitude we owe these noble men…who roused us to a sense of our own rights, to the dignity of our high calling." Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Address to the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1860.

At the 1848 First Women's Rights Convention, the Declaration of Sentiments, drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Elizabeth and Mary Ann M'Clintock, was read and signed by 100 men and women. Claiming that "all Men and Women are created equal," the signers called for extending to women the right to vote, control property, sign legal documents, serve on juries, and enjoy equal access to education and the professions. Arguments for women's rights came from experiences in the anti-slavery movement. Angelina and Sarah Grimké of South Carolina were Quakers and effective anti-slavery speakers, although it was considered improper for women to speak before "promiscuous" audiences composed of both men and women. During a petition drive in Massachusetts in 1837, male listeners thronged to female-only lectures. While condemning slavery, the Grimkés upheld "the cause of woman as a moral being." "Sister Sarah does preach up woman's rights most nobly and fearlessly," reported Angelina to a friend. Rebuked by Congregational ministers and others for speaking to promiscuous audiences, they held their ground. To do otherwise would have been "…a violation of our fundamental principle that man & woman are created equal, & have the same duties & the same responsibilities as moral beings." As reformers, women developed organizational skills necessary for a successful social movement. They learned to write persuasively, raise funds, organize supporters and events, and speak to large groups of men and women about important political and social issues. In the service of anti-slavery, women found their voices. Between 1850 and 1860, women's rights advocates held state and national conventions and campaigned for legal changes.

The Emergence of Violence

By 1848, the Liberty Party, which had earlier split from the American Anti-Slavery Society, joined a coalition to create the Free Soil Party. Free Soilers sought to limit slavery by denying it to new territories entering the union. In July, 1848, a Free Soil Convention was held in Seneca Falls, just before the Women's Rights Convention. Some male village residents attended both conventions. Jacob P. Chamberlain and Saron Phillips, who signed the Declaration of Sentiments, were chosen as delegates to the Free Soil Party's national convention. The 1850 passage of the Fugitive Slave Law authorized federal marshals to seize and return fugitive slaves. Northern free blacks had little protection against false claims by southern slaveholders. While many free blacks fled to Canada, previously neutral northerners were enraged at the injustice.

As the U.S. expanded, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, allowing each new area to decide whether it would allow slavery. Slavery and anti-slavery supporters rushed into Kansas to claim it for their side. In 1856, after anti-slavery settlers died during an attack in Lawrence, Kansas, John Brown led a raid against pro-slavery homes along Pottawatomie Creek, killing five men in retaliation. With a warrant out for his arrest, John Brown returned east to plan a daring raid. He hoped to create a large slave insurrection in Virginia. Brown sought support among prominent abolitionists like Frederick Douglass. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's cousin, Gerrit Smith, provided financial support. A decade earlier, he had sold Brown a parcel of land in a settlement for free blacks in the Adirondacks. Now, Brown asked Smith to help finance his scheme. Smith agreed, becoming one of the "Secret Six" financiers of John Brown's raid. On October 16, 1859, John Brown and twenty-one followers launched an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. When the anticipated slave revolt failed to materialize, the raid ended in dismal failure. Brown and his men were tried, convicted, and hanged. A letter in Brown's possession incriminated Smith, who went insane as a result of the publicity and threat of prosecution. A martyr in the eyes of non-violent abolitionists, Brown became a symbol of escalating violence in pursuit of emancipation.

"How Glass Our House Is" An Uneasy Truce with the War

"The death of my father, the worse than death of my dear cousin Gerrit, the martyrdom of that great and glorious John Brown, all conspire to make me regret more than ever my dwarfed womanhood.…in times like these, everyone should do the work of a full grown man." Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Susan B. Anthony, 1859

Many nonviolent reformers, concluding that slavery could only be purged by war, welcomed the outbreak of the Civil War in April, 1861. Even Quaker pacifists reluctantly supported the war if it would bring an end to slavery. David Wright's support of the war brought no criticism from sister-in-law Lucretia Mott, considering, "how glass our house is." She hoped the war "would be prosecuted with energy and faith since it was founded on so good a cause." When Horace Greeley and others pointed out that these hardly seemed the words of a pacifist, she responded, "…as the natural result of our wrong-doings and our atrocious cruelties, terrible as war must ever be, let us hope it will not be stayed by any compromise which shall continue the unequal, cruel war on the rights and liberties of millions of our unoffending fellow beings.…"

Meanwhile, the national conventions for women's rights ended. In 1864, the National Woman's Loyal League, headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, gathered 400,000 signatures on a petition for an immediate end to slavery. Having neither access to the vote nor military service, women used the petition to support the 13th Amendment. The Civil War ended in 1865, followed by passage of the 13th Amendment which outlawed slavery. In 1870, the 15th Amendment gave African-American men the right to vote. Stanton and others fought, and lost, the battle to include women in expanded suffrage. In victory over slavery, decades-long alliances were broken. The women's rights movement split and old friends in the abolition and women's rights movements parted company. Just as anti-slavery forces had divided, so too did organizations struggling for women's suffrage.
National Park Service

Fighting for Equality - Call to the 1st US Women's Rights Convention 1850

Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the National Portrait Gallery

A CONVENTION
Will be held at Worcester, Mass., on the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of October next, (agreeably to appointment by a preliminary meeting held at Boston, on the thirtieth of May last,) to consider the great question of Woman's Rights, Duties, and Relations; and the Men and Women of our country who feel sufficient interest in the subject, to give an earnest thought and effective effort to its rightful adjustment, are invited to meet each other in free conference, at the time and place appointed.

The upward tending spirit of the age, busy in a hundred forms of effort for the world's redemption from the sins and sufferings which oppress it, has brought this one, which yields to none in importance and urgency, into distinguished prominence. One half of the race are its immediate objects, and the other half are as deeply involved, by that absolute unity of interest and destiny which nature has established between them.

The neighbor is near enough to involve every human being in a general equality of rights and community of interests; but, Men and Women, in their reciprocities of love and duty are one flesh and one blood -- mother, wife, sister, and daughter come so near the heart and mind of every man that they must be either his blessing or his bane. Where there is such mutuality of interests, such an interlinking of life, there can be no real antagonism of position and action. The sexes should not, for any reason or by any chance, take hostile attitudes towards each other, either in the apprehension or amendment of the wrongs which exist in their necessary relations; but they should harmonize in opinion and co-operate in effort, for the reason that they must unite in the ultimate achievement of the desired reformation.

Of the many points now under discussion and demanding a just settlement, the general question of Woman's Rights and Relations comprehends these: € Her Education, Literary, Scientific , and Artistic; € Her Avocations, Industrial, Commercial , and Professional; € Her Interests, Pecuniary, Civil, and Political; in a word € Her Rights as an Individual, and her Functions as a Citizen.

No one will pretend that all these interests, embracing, as they do, all that is not merely animal in a human life, are rightly understood or justly provided for in the existing social order. Nor is it any more true that the constitutional differences of the sexes, which should determine, define, and limit the resulting differences of office and duty, are adequately comprehended and practically observed.

Woman has been condemned for her greater delicacy of physical organization to inferiority of intellectual and moral culture, and to the forfeiture of great social, civil, and religious privileges. In the relation of marriage she has been ideally annihilated, and actually enslaved in all that concerns her personal and pecuniary rights; and even in widowhood and single life, she is oppressed with such limitation and degradation of labor and avocation as clearly and cruelly mark the condition of a disabled caste. But, by the inspiration of the Almighty, the beneficent spirit of reform is roused to the redress of these wrongs. The tyranny which degrades and crushes wives and mothers, sits no longer lightly on the world's conscience; the heart's home-worship feels the stain of stooping at a dishonored altar; Manhood begins to feel the shame of muddying the springs from which it draws its highest life; and Womanhood is everywhere awakening to assert its divinely chartered rights, and to fulfil its noblest duties. It is the spirit of reviving truth and righteousness which has moved upon the great deep of the public heart and aroused its redressing justice; and, through it, the Providence of God is vindicating the order and appointments of his creation.

The signs are encouraging; the time is opportune. Come, then, to this Convention. It is your duty, if you are worthy of your age and country. Give the help of your best thought to separate the light from the darkness. Wisely give the protection of your name and the benefit of your efforts to the great work of settling the principles, devising the method, and achieving the success of this high and holy movement.

Fighting for Equality - Lucy Stone 1818-1893

Lucy Stone (1818-1893) was an early advocate of antislavery and women’s rights. She was born in Massachusetts. After she graduated from Oberlin College in 1847, she began lecturing for the antislavery movement as a paid agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society. She said in 1847, “I expect to plead not for the slave only, but for suffering humanity everywhere. Especially do I mean to labor for the elevation of my sex.”

Lucy Stone did not participate in the First Woman’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, but she was an organizer of the 1850 Worcester First National Woman’s Rights Convention. She also participated in the convention and addressed the audience. It is her 1852 speech at the National Woman's Rights Convention in Syracuse, New York, which is credited for converting Susan B. Anthony to the cause of women’s rights. Lucy Stone participated in the 1852, 1853, and 1855 national woman’s rights conventions, and was president of the 1856 National Woman’s Rights Convention held in New York, New York.

In 1855 Stone married Henry Blackwell. At the ceremony the minister read a statement from the bride and groom, announcing that Stone would keep her own name. The statement said that current marriage laws “refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer on the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would exercise, and which no man should possess.” Women who followed her example called themselves "Lucy Stoners."

After the Civil War, Lucy Stone joined Frederick Douglass and others who supported the Fifteenth Amendment as a partial gain, as they continued to work for women’s rights. The passage of the Fifteenth Amendment outraged most women’s rights leaders’ because the word “male” was included for the first time in the Constitution. This debate divided the women’s rights movement. By 1869 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and others formed the National Woman Suffrage Association and focused their efforts on a federal woman’s suffrage amendment. Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe led others to form the American Woman Suffrage Association, which chose to focus on state suffrage amendments.

By 1871 Stone had helped organize the publication of The Woman’s Journal and was co-editing the newspaper with her husband Henry Blackwell.

National Park Service

Fighting for Equality - Paulina W Davis' Address 1850 Women's Rights Convention

.

Paulina W Davis

This leaves me at liberty to occupy your attention for a few moments with some general reflections upon the attitude and relations of our movement to our times and circumstances, and upon the proper spirit and method of promoting it. I do not even intend to treat these topics formally, and I do not hope to do it successfully; for nothing less than a complete philosophy of reform could answer such inquiries, and that philosophy, it is very certain, the world has not yet discovered.

Human rights, and the reasons on which they rest, are not difficult of comprehension. The world has never been ignorant of them, nor insensible to them; and human wrongs and their evils are just as familiar to experience and as well understood; but all this is not enough to secure to mankind the possession of the one, or to relieve them from the felt burden and suffering of the other. A creed of abstract truths, or a catechism of general principles, and a completely digested list of grievances, combined, are not enough to adjust a practical reform to its proper work, else Prophets and Apostles and earnest world-menders in general would have been more successful, and left us less to wish and to do.

It is one thing to issue a declaration of rights[2]or a declaration of wrong to the world, but quite another thing wisely and happily to commend the subject to the world's acceptance, and so to secure the desired reformation. Every element of success is, in its own place and degree, equally important; but the very starting point is the adjustment of the reformer to his work, and next after that is the adjustment of his work to those conditions of the times which he seeks to influence.

Those who prefer the end in view to all other things, are not contented with their own zeal and the discharge of their duty to their conscience. They desire the highest good for their follow-beings, and are not satisfied with merely clearing their own skirts; and they esteem martyrdom a failure at least, if not a fault, in the method of their action. It is not the salvation of their own souls they are thinking of, but the salvation of the world; and they will not willingly accept a discharge or a rejection in its stead. It is their business to preach righteousness and rebuke sin, but they have no quarrel with "the world that lieth in wickedness," and their mission is not merely to judge and condemn, but to save alike the oppressor and the oppressed. Right principles and conformable means are the first necessities of a great enterprise, but without right apprehensions and tempers and expedient methods, the most beneficent purposes must utterly fail. Who is sufficient for these things?

Divine Providence has been baffled through all the ages of disorder suffering for want of fitting agents and adapted means. Reformations of religion have proved but little better than the substitution of a new error for an old one, and civil revolutions have resolved themselves into mere civil insurrections, until history has become but a monument of buried hopes.

The European movement of 1848[3] was wanting neither in theory nor example for its safe direction, but it has nevertheless almost fallen into contempt.

We may not, therefore, rely upon a good cause and good intentions alone, without danger of deplorable disappointment.

The reformation which we purpose, in its utmost scope, is radical and universal. It is not the mere perfecting of a progress already in motion, a detail of some established plan, but it is an epochal movement-the emancipation of a class, the redemption of half the world, and a conforming re-organization of all social, political, and industrial interests and institutions. Moreover, it is a movement without example among the enterprises of associated reformations, for it has no purpose of arming the oppressed against the oppressor, or of separating the parties, or of setting up independence, or of severing the relations of either.

Its intended changes are to be wrought in the intimate texture of all societary organizations, without violence, or any form of antagonism. It seeks to replace the worn out with the living and the beautiful, so as to reconstruct without overturning, and to regenerate without destroying; and nothing of the spirit, tone, temper, or method of insurrection is proper or allowable to us and our work.

Human societies have been long working and fighting their way up from what we scornfully call barbarism, into what we boastfully call modern civilization; but, as yet, the advancement has been chiefly in ordering and methodizing the lower instincts of our nature, and organizing society under their impulses. The intellect of the masses has received development, and the gentler affections have been somewhat relieved from the dominion of force; but the institutions among men are not yet modelled after the highest laws of our nature. The masterdom of the strong hand and bold spirit is not yet over, for men have not yet established all those natural claims against each other, which seem to demand physical force and physical courage for their vindication. But the age of war is drawing towards a close, and that of peace (whose methods and end alike are harmony) is dawning, and the uprising of womanhood is its prophecy and foreshadow.

The first principles of human rights have now for a long time been abstractly held and believed, and both in Europe and America whole communities have put them into practical operation in some of their bearings. Equality before the law, and the right of the governed to choose their governors, are established maxims of reformed political science; but in the countries most advanced,[4] these doctrines and their actual benefits are as yet enjoyed exclusively by the sex that in the battle-field and the public forum has wrenched them from the old time tyrannies. They are yet denied to Woman, because she has not yet so asserted or won them for herself; for political justice pivots itself upon the barbarous principle that "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." Its furthest progress toward magnanimity is to give arms to helplessness. It has not yet learned to give justice . For this rule of barbarism there is this much justification, that although every human being is naturally entitled to every right of the race, the enjoyment and administration of all rights require such culture and conditions in their subject as usually lead him to claim and struggle for them; and the contented slave is left in slavery, and the ignorant man in darkness, on the inference that he cannot use what he does not desire. This is indeed true of the animal instincts, but it is false of the nobler soul; and men must learn that the higher faculties must be first awakened, and then gratified, before they have done their duty to their race. The ministry of angels to dependent humanity is the method of Divine Providence, and among men the law of heaven is, that the "elder shall serve the younger." But let us not complain that the hardier sex overvalue the force which heretofore has figured most in the world's affairs. "They know not what they do"[5] is the apology that crucified womanhood must concede in justice and pity to the wrong doers. In the order of things, the material world was to be first subdued. For this coarse conflict, the larger bones and stronger sinews of manhood are especially adapted, and it is a law of muscles and of all matter that might shall overcome right. This is the law of the vegetable world, and it is the law of the animal world, as well as the law of the animal instincts and of the physical organization of men; but it is not the law of spirit and affection. They are of such a nature as to charge themselves with the atonement for all evils, and to burden themselves with all the sufferings which they would remove.

This wisdom is pure, and peaceable, and gentle, and full of mercy and of good fruits.

Besides the feebler frame, which under the dynasty of muscles is degraded, there remains, even after justice has got the upper hand of force in the world's judgments, a mysterious and undefined difference of sex that seriously embarrasses the question of equality; or, if that is granted, in terms of equal fitness for avocations and positions which heretofore have been the monopoly of men. Old ideas and habits of mind survive the facts which produced them, as the shadows of night stretch far into the morning, sheltered in nooks and valleys from the rising light; and it is the work of a whole creation-day to separate the light from the darkness.

The rule of difference between the sexes must be founded on the traits which each estimates most highly in the other; and it is not at all wonderful that some of woman's artificial incapacities and slaveries may seem to be necessary to some of her excellencies; just as the chivalry that makes man a butcher of his kind still glares like a glory in the eyes of admiring womanhood, and all the more because it seems so much above and unlike her own powers and achievements. Nature does not teach that men and women are unequal, but only that they are unlike; an unlikeness so naturally related and dependent that their respective differences by their balance establish, instead of destroying, their equality.

Men are not in fact, and to all intents, equal among themselves, but their theoretical equality for all the purposes of justice is more easily seen and allowed than what we are here to claim for women. Higher views, nicer distinctions, and a deeper philosophy are required to see and feel the truths of woman's rights; and besides, the maxims upon which men distribute justice to each other have been battle-cries for ages, while the doctrine of woman's true relations in life is a new science, the revelation of an advanced age, - perhaps, indeed, the very last grand movement of humanity towards its highest destiny, - too new to be yet fully understood, too grand to grow out of the broad and coarse generalities which the infancy and barbarism of society could comprehend.

The rule of force and fraud must be well nigh overturned, and learning and religion and the fine arts must have cultivated mankind into a state of wisdom and justice tempered by the most beneficent affections, before woman can be fully installed in her highest offices. We must be gentle with the ignorance and patient under the injustice which old evils induce. Long suffering is a quality of the highest wisdom, and charity beareth all things for it hopeth all things. It will be seen that I am assuming the point that the redemption of the inferior, if it comes at all, must come from the superior. The elevation of a favored caste can have no other providential purpose than that, when it is elevated near enough to goodness and truth, it shall draw up its dependents with it.

But, however this may be in the affairs of men as they are involved with each other, it is clearly so in the matter of woman's elevation. The tyrant sex, if such we choose to term it, holds such natural and necessary relations to the victims of injustice, that neither rebellion nor revolution, neither defiance nor resistance, nor any mode of assault or defence incident to party antagonism, is either possible, expedient, or proper. Our claim must rest on its justice, and conquer by its power of truth. We take the ground, that whatever has been achieved for the race belongs to it, and must not be usurped by any class or caste. The rights and liberties of one human being cannot be made the property of another, though they were redeemed for him or her by the life of that other; for rights cannot be forfeited by way of salvage, and they are in their nature unpurchasable and inalienable.

We claim for woman a full and generous investiture of all the blessings which the other sex has solely or by her aid achieved for itself. We appeal from men's injustice and selfishness to their principles and affections.

For some centuries now, the best of them have been asserting, with their lives, the liberties and rights of the race; and it is not for the few endowed with the highest intellect, the largest frame, or even the soundest morals, that the claim has been maintained, but broadly and bravely and nobly it has been held that wherever a faculty is given, its highest activities are chartered by the Creator, and that all objects alike - whether they minister to the necessities of our animal life or to the superior powers of the human soul and so are more imperatively needed, because nobler than the bread that perishes in the use - are, of common right, equally open to ALL; and that all artificial restraints, for whatever reason imposed, are alike culpable for their presumption, their folly, and their cruelty.

It is pitiable ignorance and arrogance for either man or woman now to prescribe and limit the sphere of woman. It remains for the greatest women whom appropriate culture, and happiest influences shall yet develop, to declare and to prove what are woman's capacities and relations in the world.

I will not accept the concession of any equality which means identity or resemblance of faculty and function. I do not base her claims upon any such parallelism of constitution or attainment. I ask only freedom for the natural unfolding of her powers, the conditions most favorable for her possibilities of growth, and the full play of all those incentives which have made man her master, and then, with all her natural impulses and the whole heaven of hope to invite, I ask that she shall fill the place that she can attain to, without settling any unmeaning questions of sex and sphere, which people gossip about for want of principles of truth, or the faculty to reason upon them.

But it is not with the topics of our reform and the discussion of these that I am now concerned. It is of its position in the world's opinion, and the causes of this, that I am thinking; and I seek to derive hints and suggestions as to the method and manner of successful advocacy, from the inquiry. Especially am I solicitous that the good cause may suffer no detriment from the theoretical principles its friends may assume, or the spirit with which they shall maintain them. It is fair to presume that such causes as have obscured these questions in the general judgment of the governing sex, must also more or less darken the counsels of those most anxious for truth and right. If our demand were simply for chartered rights, civil and political, such as get acknowledgment in paper constitutions, there would be no ground of doubt. We could plead our common humanity, and claim an equal justice. We might say that the natural right of self-government is so clearly due to every human being alike, that it needs no argument to prove it; and if some or a majority of women would not exercise this right, this is no ground for taking it from those who would. And the right to the control and enjoyment of her own property and partnership in all that she helps her husband to earn and save, needs only to be stated to command instant assent. Her appropriate avocations might not be so easily settled that a programme could be completed on theoretical principles merely; but we need discuss no such difficulties while we ask only for liberty of choice, and opportunities of adaptation; and the question of her education is solved by the simple principle, that whatever she can receive is her absolute due.

Yet all these points being so easily disposed of, so far as they are mere matters of controversy, the advocates of the right need none the less the wisest and kindest consideration for all the resistance we must encounter, and the most forbearing patience under the injustice and insolence to which we must expose ourselves. And we can help ourselves to much of the prudence and some of the knowledge we shall need, by treating the prejudices of the public as considerately as if they were principles, and the customs of society as if they once had some temporary necessity, and so meet them with the greater force for the claim to respect which we concede to them. For a prejudice is just like any other error of judgment, and a custom has sometimes had some fitness to things more or less necessary, and is not an utter absurdity, even though the reason on which it was based is lost or removed. Who shall say that there is nothing serious, or respectable, or just, in the repugnance with which our propositions are received? The politician who knows his own corruption may be excused for an earnest wish to save his wife and daughter from the taint, and he must be excused, too, for not knowing that the corruption would be cured by the saving virtue which he dreads to expose to risk.

There may be real though very foolish tenderness in the motive which refuses to open to woman the trades and professions that she could cultivate and practice with equal profit and credit to herself. The chivalry that worships womanhood is not mean, though it at the same time enslaves the objects of its overfond care.

And it is even possible that men may deprive women of their property and liberties, personal and political, with the kindly purpose of accommodating their supposed incapacities for the offices and duties of human life. Harsh judgments and harsh words will neither weaken the opposition, nor strengthen our hands. Our address is to the highest sentiment of the times; and the tone and spirit due to it and becoming in ourselves, are courtesy and respectfulness. Strength and truth of complaint, and eloquence of denunciation, are easy of attainment; but the wisdom of affirmative principles and positive science, and the adjustment of reformatory measures to the exigencies of the times and circumstances, are so much the more useful as they are difficult of attainment. A profound expediency, as true to principle as it is careful of success, is, above all things, rare and necessary. We have to claim liberty without its usually associated independence. We must insist on separate property where the interests are identical, and a division of profits where the very being of the partners is blended. We must demand provisions for differences of policy, where there should be no shadow of controversy; and the free choice of industrial avocations and general education, without respect to the distinctions of sex and natural differences of faculty.

In principle these truths are not doubtful, and it is therefore not impossible to put them in practice, but they need great clearness in system and steadiness of direction to get them allowance and adoption in the actual life of the world. The opposition should be consulted where it can be done without injurious consequences. Truth must not be suppressed, nor principles crippled, yet strong meat should not be given to babes. Nor should the strong use their liberties so as to become a stumbling block to the weak. Above all things, we owe it to the earnest expectation of the age, that stands trembling in mingled hope and fear of the great experiment, to lay its foundations broadly and securely in philosophic truth, and to form and fashion it in practical righteousness. To accomplish this, we cannot be too careful or too brave, too gentle or too firm; and yet with right dispositions and honest efforts, we cannot fail of doing our share of the great work, and thereby advancing the highest interests of humanity.